National conference is irreversible, says Nwabueze

Participants at the National Political Summit in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, yesterday insisted that until the over 300 ethnic nationalities in Nigeria get together to discuss their future, the people within the country cannot be regarded as a nation.

The stakeholders, who included elder statesmen, said peace and security may continue to elude the nation until the convocation of the national conference.

The Coordinator of Nigeria Consensus Group, Prof. Ben Nwabueze (SAN), led the submissions in his keynote address yesterday at the summit, with the theme: Roadmap to Stability, Progress and Unity in Nigeria.

Prof. Nwabueze argued that anybody who does not support the national conference (not sovereign national conference), does not believe in Nigeria’s unity.

He said: “The critical problem of this country is insecurity and lack of progress. We are nowhere belonging to a nation; we are still a state.

“The national conference would, therefore, be a unique occasion – the first for the President – to speak directly to over 300 ethnic nationalities, comprising different peoples, to galvanise them into one people with one common destiny.

“Any Nigerian who does not believe in the national conference does not believe in one Nigeria.”

The constitutional lawyer explained that the conference would not be held for the disintegration of Nigeria but to cement the people as an indivisible nation.

Prof Nwabueze said: “This meeting is not meant to break the county. The conference is meant for everybody. The President should convoke the conference, as a matter of urgency. He has the power to do so as the leader of the country. He represents the majesty and sovereignty of Nigeria. We have to press on him to do it.

“We have been talking. The time has come to combine words with action.”

The elder statesman, who was a minister under the late Head of State, General Sanni Abacha, noted that the concentration of power at the centre stifles fiscal federalism.

He recalled that when he was the chairman of the sub-committee that produced Chapter Two (the Fundamental Objectives) on the drafting of 1979 Constitution, the choice was influenced by a strong centre as a factor to unite the country.

Prof Nwabueze said: “We felt that by doing this, we were establishing unity. We did not stop at that. We looked at the residual matters. These are matters that are exclusive to the states. We took a large part of it – over 30 per cent and close to 50 per cent. We took it away from states and gave to the centre.

“The result is the Almighty Federal Government. But what we discovered was that instead of producing unity, we produced disunity. That’s because of the intensity of the struggle to control the centre and the misuse or abuse of the power.

“The intensity of the struggle and the abuse of the power is so much that it is not just the political power that was concentrated at the centre; much of the money also went to the centre. So, by our action, we destroyed what is called fiscal federalism. Too much money at the centre increased the struggle for the control of the centre and the incidence of abuse.

“So, when people struggle and agitate for true federalism, for fiscal federalism, they know what they are talking about. And they are right! That must be changed. Until it is changed, we might not achieve true unity, because the basis on which we did it has proved to be misguided. The unity we thought we would achieve and what we achieved was more disunity than unity, because of the struggle and the abuse.”